1110-0006_Supporting Statement

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

1110-0006

1-705 LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS KILLED OR ASSAULTED

A. Justification.

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under the authority of Title 28, U.S. Code, Section 534, Acquisition, Preservation, and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials, June 11, 1930, the FBI was designated by the Attorney General to acquire, collect, classify, and preserve national data on criminal offenses as part of the Uniform Crime Reports.

Form 1-705, Law Enforcement Officers Killed or Assaulted (LEOKA) form supplies the national UCR Program with a monthly total count of line of duty felonious or accidental officer killings and a monthly count and supplemental information on officer assaults.

This information collection is a necessity in order for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of the total number of law enforcement officers killed and supplemental information on the total number of law enforcement officers assaulted and to ensure publication of the annual edition of LEOKA.

2. Needs and Uses

The LEOKA form is necessary in order for law enforcement agencies to report the total number of officer deaths and information on officer assaults on hard copy. Law enforcement data are used for research and statistical purposes. The national UCR Program is able to generate reliable information on law enforcement officers killed and assaulted in the line of duty. The law enforcement community in general and training centers specializing in law enforcement use the LEOKA publication as a tool to develop training initiatives that support officer safety. In addition, members of city, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement organizations use this publication as part of their research, as do governmental offices, special interest groups, academe, and all who are concerned about the men and women who serve in law enforcement. Examples of other agencies uses are:

a. Law enforcement agencies and training academies request LEOKA information to incorporate in law enforcement training programs.

b. City, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies request LEOKA information to perform research on specific topics of interest, i.e., use of body armor, weapon information, etc.

c. Local, state, and national legislators request LEOKA information for varied research and planning purposes and law enforcement administration, operation, and management.

d. The White House is supplied LEOKA information on a monthly basis to be used for condolence purposes.

e. Special interest groups, media, and academe request LEOKA information for research.

3. Use of Information Technology

Currently, 75 percent of participating law enforcement agencies submit this form electronically. Electronic submissions are received via magnetic media and/or Law Enforcement Online (LEO) e-mail <ucrstat@leo.gov>. For those agencies unable to submit data electronically, data are received on hard copy. The FBI UCR Program provides this form as a PDF printable form on the Internet at www.fbi.gov/cjis/ucr/reporting-forms at this time.

Many states that participate in the FBI UCR Program have a centralized repository serving as a state UCR Program. Several state UCR Programs have established electronic communications with their law enforcement agencies throughout their state. Agencies submit data to their state UCR Program who in turn forward it to the FBI.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This information collection was authorized in direct response to the June 11, 1930 enactment of Title 28, U.S. Code, Section 534. The FBI is the only agency collecting extensive data on law enforcement officers killed and assaulted in the line of duty.

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Entities

This information will have no significant impact on small businesses. The FBI minimizes burden on small law enforcement agencies by allowing them to submit quarterly, twice a year, or once a year. Although monthly is recommended, upon approval by the FBI UCR Program, agencies can submit data at intervals that minimizes the burdens to the agency.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or Less Frequent Collection

In order to serve as the national repository for crime reporting and to produce a reliable dataset, the FBI collects monthly statistics that are reported by participating FBI UCR Program contributors. There is an ever-increasing need for timely and accurate data dissemination by the FBI to assist our partners in law enforcement.

Although monthly reports are preferred, the FBI UCR Program has agencies submitting data quarterly, biannually, and annually. Upon approval by the FBI UCR Program agencies can submit data at intervals that minimizes the burdens to the agency.

Law enforcement agencies use UCR data to track crime, task force placement, staffing levels, and officer placement. The UCR data is used for administration, operation, management, and to determine effectiveness and placement of task forces. Agencies will justify task forces, staffing levels, and officer counts compared to other law enforcement agencies in order to receive additional staffing levels or equipment. Some agencies use other agencies’ crime statistics and staffing levels to justify their own crime statistics and staffing levels in order to obtain funding.

In past years, a committee was formed to examine less frequent reporting. This committee was chaired by Dr. Peter P. Lejins, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland; Dr. Charlton F. Chute, Director, Institute of Public Administration, New York City; and Mr. Stanley R. Schrotel, Chief of Police, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Frequency of Reports from Cooperating Police Departments

AThe committee has very seriously considered the possibility of diminishing the frequency of submission of the statistical reports by the cooperating police departments. This would mean abandoning the present scheme of getting monthly reports and substituting perhaps a quarterly or semiannual report from the police instead. The Committee has, however, rejected the idea of any change in this direction, in spite of the fact that it appears reasonable to assume that a report submitted quarterly, for instance, would decrease the amount of work to be done by the local police departments as compared to a monthly report. This could then perhaps be, used as an argument for requesting an increased amount of information in the less frequent reports. There is the danger that with the pressure for monthly reports removed, the police departments might become somewhat less punctilious and instead of producing more data for the three-months report, might actually become less precise and, not having gotten up a report for a longer period, could conceivably have difficulty in getting data together for the three-months report. Besides, of course, all analyses which are based on monthly reports, for instance the fluctuation of crime frequency in the course of the year, might suffer considerably. After studying this matter, the Committee decided not to recommend any change in the current practice.@

7. Special Circumstances

All data are collected/received from the FBI UCR Program participants on a monthly basis. The FBI’s UCR Program has established various time frames and deadlines for acquiring the monthly data. Monthly reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by the seventh day after the close of each month. Annual deadlines are also designated in order to collect/assess receipt of monthly submissions. There are times when special circumstances may cause an agency to request an extension. The FBI’s UCR Program has the authority to grant these extensions. Participation in the national UCR Program is voluntary.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

The 60 and 30 day notices have been submitted and published in the Federal Register with no public comments received.

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

The FBI UCR Program does not provide any payment or gift to respondents.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

All FBI UCR Program information collections are held confidential in accordance with Title 42, United States Code, Section 3789(g). Even though this information collection does not contain personal identifier information that may reveal the identity of an individual, it is obtained from public agencies and are, therefore, in the public domain.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

This information collection does not collect information of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent’s Burden

The estimated cost of the respondent’s burden for this data collection is as follows:

Number of respondents 18,233

Frequency of responses 12 times per year

Total annual responses 218,796

Minutes per response 7 minutes

Annual hour burden 16,228

Total number of potential agencies reporting 18,233

Total number of agencies reporting via the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) 6,641

Total annual responses 18,233 x 12 = 218,796

Burden hours for NIBRS agencies = 0

(The NIBRS is a data extraction from an already existent law enforcement database.)

Burden hours for all other agencies 11,592 x 12 = 213,588 x 7 / 60 = 16,228

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

There are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in the FBI UCR Program other than their time to respond. With the renewal of this form respondents are not expected to incur any capital, start-up, or system maintenance costs associated with this information collection. Costs to agency Records Management System (RMS) are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs due to the fact that vendors charge differently from agency to agency. Many costs are built into the vendors contracts. Depending on the vendor contracts, changes mandated by law are included within the original contract with no other additional costs. However, an estimate has been projected that agencies pay an $18,000 maintenance fee every year for system maintenance costs.

14. Cost to Federal Government

It is difficult to estimate the annual cost to the federal government under the clearance request. The following are generalized projections based upon prior collection activity as well as activities anticipated over the next three years.

Data Collection and Processing Costs

$461,060

This figure is a cost projection provided by FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), Resource Management Section, Financial Management Unit.

15. Reason for Change in Burden

There is no increase in burden on the individual respondents; however, the overall annual burden hours have decreased. This is an adjustment, a decrease from 24,919 to 16,228 which is a decrease of 8,691. This is due to the fact that the 6,641 NIBRS agencies have been removed from the total hour burden because it has been found it takes 0 burden hours to extract a NIBRS file and forward it to the FBI.

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to the FBI from local, county, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

Request for missing January-June data August and September

Request for missing 12 month LEOKA data February and March, following year

Deadline to submit data Mid-March

Data Processing/Analysis July-June

Publication of data October of following year/LEOKA

17. Display of Expiration Date

All information collected under this clearance will display the OMB Clearance Number and Expiration Date.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

The FBI’s CJIS Division does not request an exception to the certification of this information collection.

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